Jeffrey D. Sadow is an associate professor of political science at Louisiana State University Shreveport. If you're an elected official, political operative or anyone else upset at his views, don't go bothering LSUS or LSU System officials about that because these are his own views solely.
This publishes Sunday through Thursday with the exception of 7 holidays. Also check out his Louisiana Legislature Log especially during legislative sessions (in "Louisiana Politics Blog Roll" below).

Search This Blog

13.2.13

Special education funding change tackles subpar outcomes

If done correctly, proposed changes in funding for special education
students by Louisiana’s Department of Education promise to improve the state’s
dismal standing, where only half of the national average of such students earn
a high school diploma.

Only two states have a worse rate than does Louisiana, at 29 percent. Currently,
funding apportions 150 percent of the regular amount for a child classified as
having a disability. State Superintendant
John White proposes making it a sliding scale per child, dependent equally upon
severity of disability, setting for education, and student progress.

Really disappointing about the current graduation trend is that
Louisiana actually has a lower proportion of its students in some kind of
special education track. While the national average (for 2009-10) is 13.2 percent, in
Louisiana (for 2010-11) it is 11.8 percent. And while
nationally the highest single category, which involves the least intensive supports,
is specific learning disabilities at 4.9 percent, in Louisiana it’s only 3.4
percent. Given that means the proportions of more severely disabled students
are about equal national to state, that can explain some of why the Louisiana graduation
rate is half the national rate (because a higher proportion of Louisiana
students need more intensive supports), but surely not entirely.

To date, while schools get the extra 50 percent per student, there’s no
exact mechanism that forces them to spend it in a way that matches resources to
need. If White’s proposal allocates on that basis – say 110 percent to an SLD,
140 percent to speech or language impairment, 170 percent to orthopedic
impairment, 180 percent to multiply disabled, -- that would encourage schools
to target better resources to need, assuming that imprecise targeting is what
is holding back the graduation rate. It means that some schools might have been
getting overcompensated for having disproportionately among their special
education students those with SLDs and emotional disturbances, while other
schools that have a disproportionate group of severely disabled may not have
been getting enough, now will get more appropriate amounts of funding.

This scaling also may discourage schools from too willingly wish to
place students into exceptionality programs. While the standards are
very selective and exacting to have a student qualify under the more severe
disabilities, they are much more open to interpretation with special learning
disabilities. And even as the statistics do not suggest that it is a major
problem, if one at all, in Louisiana, the lure of 50 percent extra dollars may
encourage schools to classify borderline cases of students as ones with
disabilities who really do not have one. Reduce that incentive considerably,
and that would reduce the temptation.

Also a possible benefit would be providing greater choice to disabled
students. Because the law allows some leeway in acceptance of students, because
of particular missions they may have in the case of charter schools, as a
proportion of disabled students in student populations there are
disproportionately fewer enrolled in charter schools than in traditional ones, particularly
with severe disabilities as these schools may face bigger fixed costs and not
benefit from economies of scale in the instruction of these students that their
traditional counterparts. The new scaling may act as an encouragement to
charter schools to become more flexible on this issue in accepting students
with more severe disabilities, as a result of greater compensation. The same
logic may apply to the scholarship voucher program recently launched statewide.

In formulating the policy, it must avoid incentives to segregate
disabled students. While in some cases it will be appropriate to place disabled
students in a common learning environment separated from others, and that
schools can go too far in inappropriately mainstreaming these students into
classrooms, for many disabled students supports necessary are unobtrusive enough
so that there is minimal to no disruption of classes taken with their
non-disabled peers. The environmental aspect of the scoring system should be
biased in favor of an inclusionary strategy where it makes sense.

As well, the student progress portion of the system should be designed
with that goal in mind. Grade progress and eventual graduation should be
facilitated by correct targeting and by inclusive learning environments. This
provides incentives that schools use these resources wisely in matching them to
need.

Certainly the mental and/or physical challenges disabled students must
face will interfere with their ability to earn a high school diploma, But
surely these are not so great that fewer than one in three end up graduating;
other states’ results contradict accepting that as normal. This system must
improve, and the broad outlines of White’s proposal give every indication that
it will help facilitate that.

About Me

Subscribe To

Comment publishing requirements

You must be a registered user with an OpenID-compliant service to leave comments, which will be moderated. Any comments that do not address issues in the post for which they are intended will not be posted; neither will those that utterly lack intellectual coherence.